MIAMI A diver from New Mexico who died in a Thanksgiving Day boating accident was a manager at one of the nation's leading research laboratories who was in Florida for a holiday dive trip with her nephew, authorities said Friday.

The Broward County Medical Examiner ruled Friday that Nina Poppelsdorf, 54, drowned after Thursday when a large wave flipped over a 45-foot catamaran carrying her and nearly two-dozen others.

Poppelsdorf was a leader of a Sandia team that helped in the response to the crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami left several reactors there without cooling water, Fong said. He also said Poppelsdorf was a certified diving instructor.

The Coral Princess is a Corinthian catamaran owned by South Florida Diving Headquarters in Pompano Beach. A phone message left Friday by The Associated Press for the owner of the boat was not immediately returned.

Three of the 23 people on the boat were treated and released. Most of them were from out of town on vacation, authorities said

An autopsy was planned Friday for Nina Poppelsdorf, 54, who was part of a group of about two dozen coming back from a dive outing Thursday when a large wave flipped over their 45-foot catamaran.

*snip*"Nina worked for about 20 years at Sandia National Laboratories and made many contributions to industrial hygiene, safety and radiation protection," said Sandia Environment, Safety & Health director Sid Gutierrez, her supervisor. "She served as both a staff member and later as an outstanding manager. She was recently promoted to senior manager and was well-respected by her peers and staff alike.

*snip*Poppelsdorf was a leader of a Sandia team that helped in the response to the crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami left several reactors there without cooling water, Fong said. He also said Poppelsdorf was a certified diving instructor.

The Sandia National Laboratories, managed and operated by the Sandia Corporation (a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation), are two major United States Department of Energy research and development national laboratories.

Their primary mission is to develop, engineer, and test the non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons. The primary campus is located on Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico and the other is in Livermore, California, next to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration laboratory.

It is Sandia's mission to maintain the reliability and surety of nuclear weapon systems, conduct research and development in arms control and nonproliferation technologies, and investigate methods for the disposal of the United States' nuclear weapons program's hazardous waste. Other missions include research and development in energy and environmental programs, as well as the surety of critical national infrastructures. In addition, Sandia is home to a wide variety of research including computational biology, mathematics (through its Computer Science Research Institute), materials science, alternative energy, psychology, MEMS, and cognitive science initiatives. Sandia formerly hosted ASCI Red, one of the world's fastest supercomputers until its recent decommission, and now hosts ASCI Red Storm, originally known as Thor's Hammer. Sandia is also home to the Z Machine. The Z Machine is the largest X-ray generator in the world and is designed to test materials in conditions of extreme temperature and pressure. It is operated by Sandia National Laboratories to gather data to aid in computer modeling of nuclear weapons.

Sandia National Laboratories' roots go back to World War II and the Manhattan Project. Prior to the United States formally entering the war, the U.S. Army leased land near Albuquerque, New Mexico airport known as Oxnard Field, to service transient Army and U.S. Navy aircraft. In January 1941 construction began on the Albuquerque Army Air Base, leading to establishment of the Bombardier School-Army Advanced Flying School near the end of the year. Soon thereafter it was renamed Kirtland Field, after early Army military pilot Colonel Roy S. Kirtland, and in mid-1942 the Army acquired Oxnard Field. During the war years facilities were expanded further and Kirtland Field served as a major Army Air Forces training installation.

Thanks for this tread. I was trying to post info last night when the FLP went down.

Here is an interview with one of her friends...

Stacey Minton owns the New Mexico Scuba Center in Albuquerque and went on hundreds of dives with Poppelsdorf over eight years. When she heard the news Thanksgiving Day about her friend dying, it devastated her.

Poppelsdorf was a senior manager of the radiation protection, industrial hygiene and safety center at Sandia National Laboratories, lab spokeswoman Heather Clark said. She was hired in August 1992 at the lab, a federal research and development center.

Poppelsdorf was a leader of a Sandia team that helped in the response to the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami left several reactors there without cooling water, Fong said. He also said Poppelsdorf was a certified diving instructor.

Both of the eye witnesses act very matter-of-factly. Kinda strange, the first guy acts like he's giving a recap of the game to his buddies. Also is there any video of the actual wave hitting the boat and knocking it over? Or just video of the aftermath?

Poppelsdorf was single, loved her dogs and worked at Sandia National Laboratories

Minton described Poppelsdorf's work as "very high security clearance."

Minton said Poppelsdorf was nearing retirement at Sandia and planned to devote more time to her diving passion. She had been diving since 1991 and listed her favorite dive site as El Paseo de Cedral Wall in Cozumel, Mexico.

MIAMI A diver from New Mexico who died in a Thanksgiving Day boating accident was a manager at one of the nation's leading research laboratories who was in Florida for a holiday dive trip with her nephew, authorities said Friday.

The Broward County Medical Examiner ruled Friday that Nina Poppelsdorf, 54, drowned after Thursday when a large wave flipped over a 45-foot catamaran carrying her and nearly two-dozen others.

Poppelsdorf was a leader of a Sandia team that helped in the response to the crisis at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami left several reactors there without cooling water, Fong said. He also said Poppelsdorf was a certified diving instructor.

The Coral Princess is a Corinthian catamaran owned by South Florida Diving Headquarters in Pompano Beach. A phone message left Friday by The Associated Press for the owner of the boat was not immediately returned.

Three of the 23 people on the boat were treated and released. Most of them were from out of town on vacation, authorities said

The real difficulty with rogue waves, besides being flattened by them, is that there is NO general wave theory.

A general wave theory OUGHT to include non linear waves. There is some knowledge of these, with the KdV equation and the modified KdV equation (which exhibit soliton behavior).

Beginning in 1995, when the HAARP antenna was powered and operational in Gakona, Alaska, the rogue waves began to appear in unusually large numbers, and in places where there were no colliding currents to explain the phenomenon.

In fact the first one that was actually measured with a laser, was the Draupner wave, that hit an oil platform in the North Sea on New Years Day 1995. (Credit was already taken for the HAARP creation of that wave by the dangerous Japanese cult, Aum Shyrinko. The same cult which released sarin nerve gas in a crowded Japanese subway station in 1995. They did this with $1 Billion given to an old KGB group to lease their Russian style HAARP equipment.)

When that wave was analyzed mathematically for 2nd order effects, it was found to be unlike any other large waves that day. It was not a normal large wave, but it was a rogue wave. [link to patriceayme.wordpress.com]

Check out Sandia's youtube page. There are some crazy video regarding the stuff they do in the middle of the desert.

About SandiaLabs

Sandia National Laboratories safeguards the nation's nuclear stockpile and helps the country solve some of its most pressing engineering problems in homeland security, energy, and basic research.

Its roots lie in World War II's Manhattan Project. Its history reflects the changing national security needs of postwar America.

Sandia's original emphasis on ordnance engineering — turning the nuclear physics packages created by Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories into deployable weapons — expanded into new areas as national security requirements changed.

In addition to ensuring the safety and reliability of the stockpile, Sandia applied the expertise it acquired in weapons work to a variety of related areas such as energy research, supercomputing, treaty verification, nanotechnology, and nonproliferation.

GLP's best Fuku thread: Thread: *** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and linkstwitter: #citizenperth“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”- Albert Einstein

Strange indeed.The fact that he worked at Sandia also raises a very large red flag for me...that place is scary with advanced technology and security there is tighter than Area 51.

I know this because I used to work for Container Products Corporation...they make steel containers strong enough to hold nuclear waste that they bury underground...Sandia National Lab was one of my accounts and I was responsible for shipping and receiving. The trucking companies we usually used hated to go there just because of the security protocols. (I got this job after the Marine Corps because my security clearance was, let's just say, astronomicalif you get my drift.)I have been to area 51 to acquire some needed things...to tell you the truth...it looks like every other small military outpost, I didn;t see anything special there and the Marines (yes marines, navy and airforce worked in conjunction there) seemed like it was just any other duty station.

My MOS was 3043, but I was attached to SPMAGTF (Special Marine Air to Ground Task Force) who were badasses and could make Recon look like bootcamp recruits. There were only 13 of us in the entire Marine Corps attached to this unit.My job was to "acquire" necessary gear for units like Seal Team Six and have it in place before the teams ever got their orders...so I knew where, when, and how these teams were going before they did. My unit answered only to POTUS and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (I was the shit back in the day)

Anyway...sorry for getting sidetracked-who's to say that this person wasn't murdered by his companions and blamed it on a rogue wave. It may sound like a ridiculous conspiracy...but stranger things have happened (Et tu Brute?)

This guy was in the know and perhaps was going to come forward with some damning evidence. I hope the investigators will put every person who was on that boat through a lie detector test. Rogue wave out of nowhere and only one person-a very important person with knowledge and secrets-dies?

I wish Columbo could investigate...I loved the way he went about effing with people's heads.

Bottom line-Scientist who specializes in super secret nuclear projects and is a consultant for the Fuku disaster dies under mysterious conditions.

Hmmmmm...sounds like a cover-up to me and I doubt it's being investigated at all. End of story.

Strange indeed.The fact that he worked at Sandia also raises a very large red flag for me...that place is scary with advanced technology and security there is tighter than Area 51.

I know this because I used to work for Container Products Corporation...they make steel containers strong enough to hold nuclear waste that they bury underground...Sandia National Lab was one of my accounts and I was responsible for shipping and receiving. The trucking companies we usually used hated to go there just because of the security protocols. (I got this job after the Marine Corps because my security clearance was, let's just say, astronomicalif you get my drift.)I have been to area 51 to acquire some needed things...to tell you the truth...it looks like every other small military outpost, I didn;t see anything special there and the Marines (yes marines, navy and airforce worked in conjunction there) seemed like it was just any other duty station.

My MOS was 3043, but I was attached to SPMAGTF (Special Marine Air to Ground Task Force) who were badasses and could make Recon look like bootcamp recruits. There were only 13 of us in the entire Marine Corps attached to this unit.My job was to "acquire" necessary gear for units like Seal Team Six and have it in place before the teams ever got their orders...so I knew where, when, and how these teams were going before they did. My unit answered only to POTUS and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (I was the shit back in the day)

Anyway...sorry for getting sidetracked-who's to say that this person wasn't murdered by his companions and blamed it on a rogue wave. It may sound like a ridiculous conspiracy...but stranger things have happened (Et tu Brute?)

This guy was in the know and perhaps was going to come forward with some damning evidence. I hope the investigators will put every person who was on that boat through a lie detector test. Rogue wave out of nowhere and only one person-a very important person with knowledge and secrets-dies?

I wish Columbo could investigate...I loved the way he went about effing with people's heads.

Bottom line-Scientist who specializes in super secret nuclear projects and is a consultant for the Fuku disaster dies under mysterious conditions.

Hmmmmm...sounds like a cover-up to me and I doubt it's being investigated at all. End of story.

GLP's best Fuku thread: Thread: *** Fukushima *** and other nuclear-----updates and linkstwitter: #citizenperth“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”- Albert Einstein